Rush early, not late
It's been a long day for this guy and I'm feeling pretty exhausted, which prompted me to write this blog.
But...hold on a a minute...if I'm so tired, why don't I just go to bed instead of writing this silly blog?
The point is, the reason I'm so exhausted is because I am a procrastinator. I had to file my 2013 taxes today, which kept me up all night long and into the wee morning hours before I was finally prepared for today's appointment. Mind you, this was after filing a 6 month extension.
I need to be more organized with my books, in other words . . . and I need to work at it on a regular basis. I lost an entire day yesterday by stressing over getting all of my income and expenses detailed out, when I should have already had that stuff in order. Furthermore, the tax preparation happened to coincide with a particularly busy work week for me, causing even more of a pile-on.
The reason I'm offering you this example is because I want to stress the importance of being on task, and getting prepared ahead of time.
When it comes to your sites, you want to be organized and on top of things. Instead of scrambling around trying to think of content ideas, do the research and get a content calendar going. Each time you come up with a good topic or discover some juicy keyword opportunities, enter those in as post draft titles. When you're feeling particularly prolific, crank out a few posts that day, publish one and queue the rest.
It's a very good idea to keep a collection of ready to publish drafts so that the show can go on in the event you need to suddenly spend a few days away from your sites. If you're the kind of person who doesn't have a content strategy, then it's going to be difficult to be consistent and you'll have a hard time gaining and maintaining visitors. You need to be diligent and stick to a routine.
You never know when one of your posts or pages is going to be voted up on Reddit, and when that does happen, you don't want to miss out on that opportunity by not having some fresh new content to show your new audience, or having them deal with an unresolved user interface issue that 'you had been meaning to fix'.
If you happen to notice a problem with your site, take care of it right away. If you cant fix it, try to find someone who can help. You don't want to let those things go, as they are key indicators to your visitors that your site lacks quality and trust.
I am guilty of this myself, but I'm trying to change this. Not so much with my sites, as I'm pretty OCD when it comes to them, but the accountant in me needs a swift kick in the ass. Discussing it helps tattoo it on my brain and makes me feel a little more accountable, so thanks for listening. :)
Recent Comments
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Good stuff Craig, now if only you were as organized with your financials.
Try this, put whatever Must be done, either in front or on top of your computer. So, you can't get to what you Want to do before you do the stuff you Have To Do.
I get most of my inspiration when I'm out on a run in the park. When I get home I write in a notebook (a spiral notebook with paper and no plastic), the key topics I was thinking of.
My Collection, of Topics is all on paper. I have enough topics to feed my website for several months.
Then I start the 'keyword' search process, Google, WA Keyword Tool & Jaaxy. The results go into Google Docs, where I flesh it out.
My Articles are all on the computer.
I don't have a backlog of articles ready to go. Much of my time is spent on lessons and trying to build my knowledge base.
That's my process.
Great lesson about being on task and staying on top of things. I learned a great concept ... the 4 D's - Do it, Diarise it, Delegate it, or Dump it. Makes decision-making simpler (not necessarily easier).
I would add that under the 'Do it' category I would ask the question can I get it done under 2 minutes ... if the answer is Yes then I would do it right then. If the answer is no then this is when the 'Diarise' gets activated.
Of course like any system it takes action to make any system work ... Oh and discipline :-)
Thanks for the reminder!
I really like your idea of having a content collection. That is one of my goals. Kyle told us to have a spread sheet to list titles of our content and articles. Organization is an important goal for me. I like to write in notebooks. No matter how well I try to plan, the universe sneaks up and throws in some kaos every once in a while. So, I need to be sneakier....thanks for sharing.
Great reminder and excellent inspiration! Thank for you sharing and well done and getting the post out and leading the way! Excellent example!
I think a lot of people have difficulties with organizing time and ideas. I know I do. I said something about making a list to my daughter as my organizational technique. She picked up about three notebooks and said "these"? I have to wonder how much time I spend stressing about getting things done compared to actually doing them. I'm really working on it though and that's the best I can do today. Tomorrow, who knows?